Friday, May 28, 2010

Eurovision Song Contest 1956 - 2009

Fifty-seven songs have won the Eurovision Song Contest, an annual competition organized by member countries of the European Broadcasting Union. The Contest, which has been broadcast every year since its debut in 1956, is one of the longest-running television programmes in the world. The Contest's winner has been determined using numerous voting techniques throughout its history; centre to these have been the awarding of points to countries by juries or televoters. The country awarded the most points is declared the winner. The first Eurovision Song Contest was not won on points, but by votes (two per country), and only the winner was announced.

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The Winners from 1956-1980, the songs that received first place in
Eurovision Song Contest

There have been 54 Contests, with one winner each year except the tied 1969 Contest, which had four. Twenty-five different countries have won the contest. Switzerland won the Contest on their debut—the first Contest, in 1956. The country with the highest number of wins is Ireland, with seven. Portugal is the country with the longest history in the Contest without a win; it made its forty-second appearance at the 2009 Contest. The only person to have won more than once as performer is Ireland's Johnny Logan, who performed "What's Another Year" in 1980 and "Hold Me Now" in 1987. Logan is also one of only five songwriters to have written more than one winning entry ("Hold Me Now" 1987 and "Why Me?" 1992, performed by Linda Martin). This unique distinction makes Logan the only person to have three Eurovision victories to his/her credit, as either singer, songwriter or both.

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The Winners from 1981-2009, the songs that received first place in
Eurovision Song Contest

Winning the Eurovision Song Contest provides a unique opportunity for the winning artist(s) to capitalize on their success and surrounding publicity by launching or furthering their international career. However, throughout the history of the Contest relatively few names have gone on to be huge international stars. The most notable winning Eurovision artists whose career was directly launched into the spotlight following their win were ABBA, who won the Contest for Sweden in 1974 with their song "Waterloo". ABBA went on to be one of the most successful bands of their time. Another notable winner who subsequently achieved international fame and success was Céline Dion, who won the Contest for Switzerland in 1988 with the song "Ne partez pas sans moi", though her international singing career came some years later and is not generally directly associated to her winning the contest.